


stepping forward out into the day

by lunardiaz



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Breakups, Drinking, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Old Friends, One Shot, Trust, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 00:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13729395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunardiaz/pseuds/lunardiaz
Summary: Rosa crashes at Jake's after a night out.





	stepping forward out into the day

Rosa Diaz was hard to read. That was a given, so the fact that she was drunk definitely wasn't helping.

They'd been out drinking at Smith's, where Rosa told him that she must've left her keys somewhere because she didn't have them on her, and that she didn't have a spare. Her two choices for a place to crash were his place or Amy's; it wasn't a hard decision. She ended up on Jake's couch a few hours later because,  frankly, she had nowhere else to go.  It wasn't her first time staying over at Jake's apartment; during their time at the academy, she'd ended up there often. She knew her way around the apartment, could work his shower, and even had her own spot on the couch. It was on the right, and it went unspoken.

Jake was watching her from the kitchen, making the coffee that she'd asked him to make for her with a surprisingly genuine voice rather than just telling him to do it. No doubt that it was weird, seeing as he was used to just being told what to do, but he appreciated drunk Rosa's manners. She was leaning against the armrest, her head on her hand, eyes open but staring blankly at the floor a few feet in front of her. She wiped some of the smudged makeup off of her cheeks with the back of her hand. She was sitting in her spot.

"I couldn't remember how you take it," Jake said as he handed her the mug, an old I LOVE NY souvenir, though he knew that there was a slim chance that she was actually listening. She wasn't one to bitch about coffee being wrong.

Her hand jolted in a surprised way when she took it from him, gripping onto the handle with one hand and letting the other slap against her thigh. "Shit," she whispered, sniffing and setting it on her knee.

In a moment of teasing that he would come to regret in just a few seconds, Jake added, "It's hot."

 

"Yeah, I know." So Drunk Rosa _still_ didn't find his adorable, charming banter to be funny. Good to know.

He took the open seat on the couch and stared down into a cup of coffee that he knew he wasn't going to drink. It was quiet, but Jake couldn't even call the silence that was hanging over them awkward, because in reality? It was only awkward for him.  Rosa had either blocked out or never  fully  formed the capacity to be uncomfortable in social situations, but she sure as hell could make others feel that way. Is it possible to feel like someone is ignoring you even if you aren't talking? Because Jake was pretty sure Rosa was ignoring the hell out of his presence.

She was just sitting there. True, she wasn't talking, but she was never exactly chatty. He was overthinking, and if he hadn't  just  been out doing shots for two hours, he would've said that he needed a drink, but, alas, he was already buzzed. Plus, alcohol probably wasn't helping the intense feelings of loneliness were coming up on him. Why did he have to be a sad drunk?

Figuring that the coffee would have to work for now, Jake took a sip and immediately wanted to spit it out- wow, he was  _remarkably_ bad at making coffee- but Rosa's quiet voice interrupted his thoughts. "Can I borrow a shirt?"

When he looked over, Rosa was holding the cup of coffee between her knees, her thumbs resting on the rim, and she was still looking at the floor in front of her. Her voice sounded vulnerable, and he didn't know shit about body language besides what he'd learned in interrogations but she _seemed_  vulnerable, or nervous, or something other than her usual untouchable nonchalance. And it was weird.  Jake had no idea how to react, and, _okay_ ,  maybe  anyone else asking for a shirt to borrow wouldn't be a big deal, but it was for Rosa.  He couldn't remember the last time she'd ever asked him for anything, besides the coffee, which she didn't seem too eager to drink. Maybe  a pen or something? But a _shirt_?

It took a couple of moments for him to reply and he hoped to God that either the alcohol or the lack of eye contact kept her from noticing the delay.  "Uh, yeah, of course," Jake said  quickly, setting the mug on the table and then standing up, but not before banging his knee on the table. She was still staring at him dead-on. "A shirt. Yeah. Cool. I'll grab you one."

"Thanks."

Jake could practically feel Rosa's eyes burning into his back as he walked towards his bedroom. Why was he so on edge? He was hanging around his living room with Rosa.  _Rosa_. If anything, he should feel overconfident. He decided alcohol helped nothing in this situation as he rummaged through his bottom drawer, grabbing a shirt from the police academy that she probably had at home, too.

When he came back into the living room, she was standing up, arms crossed over her chest, looking at some of the pictures that Jake had tacked up on the wall. There were pictures with college friends, a few with his mom, an old Polaroid with Rosa from the first few months of their friendship. He couldn't help but wonder if that was what she was looking at. When she turned around, he looked away, making his best effort to seem like he hadn't been staring at her.

Jake held the shirt out in her direction, adding a shrug. "I hope this works," he said in a voice that was a little more sheepish than he'd intended, but she didn't seem to notice, or maybe she didn't care. Rosa just mumbled another quick thanks and took it from him, walking towards the bathroom to change.

The bathroom door clicked behind her, and Jake realized that Rosa had never invited him over to her apartment. True, he'd been to her place when they were twenty-somethings and going to school together, but that was a temporary rental in her friend's apartment. It didn't really count. She'd definitely gotten a real apartment since then, and it wasn't like he  _wanted_ to go over there, but it was kind of strange that he didn't even know where it was. She said that he was her closest friend. Did that mean that no one had ever stepped foot in her personal life?

Maybe he did want to go over there. He didn't know. However rare the occasion was, Rosa would come over here like it was no big deal, although in her signature Rosa Diaz sort of way, she never explicitly acknowledged the fact that he was letting her stay over. She just showed up and then left, usually before he was even  _awake_. Who does that?

It was weird. She was weird. Their friendship was weird. He should be used to that by now, but for whatever reason, he wasn't.

"I have this shirt." Rosa was walking out from the bathroom and towards him. The blouse that she'd been wearing was draped over her arm, and she pointed towards the one that she was now wearing. "Except I'm pretty sure that mine has your signature in Sharpie on the back."

Jake laughed halfheartedly, nodding a little. "Yep, that sounds about right. It's probably in terrible cursive, too." He paused for a couple of seconds, watching her type something into her phone before tossing it onto the couch.

The lack of eye contact meant that she was either sobering up or just tuning him out, and the second option felt more probable; she'd made minimal conversation. Even at the bar she had been in her own little world, ordering drinks and sitting in the corner of the booth while she messed with her phone. Now that he was thinking about it, he couldn't even remember if she'd added anything to their table's discussion. True, it had been about Valentine's day, and Rosa was never a romantic, but  _still_. She could've wallowed in being single with the rest of them.

He wasn't going to deny it- feeling like your best friend was annoyed by you/ignoring you/using you sucked a little bit. Rosa wasn't a warm person, but she could at least say something to make him feel slightly less insignificant right now. He didn't want her to leave, and he was more than happy to help her, but the hospitality felt pointless. Just because she was fine with sleeping on the floor and making zero conversation didn't mean that he was fine with her doing so.

Emotional Jake was coming out. Drinking always brought him out eventually, especially tequila, but it usually wasn't in front of Rosa and it was never over a t-shirt & an untouched cup of coffee. "Do you even want to be here?" he blurted out, his voice sharp in a way he didn't know he was capable of. "Because I feel like I'm pissing you off."

As soon as he said it, it felt uncalled for. She'd done nothing rude and most of her time tonight had been spent sitting on the couch. Everything that had just run through his brain (and what had just come out of his mouth) came crashing down on him and he felt, well, awful. This was his closest friend and he just got defensive with her.

It felt like an eternity before Rosa looked up at him. She was preoccupied with the buttons on her shirt, but she definitely heard him, because her hands were shaking in a way they hadn't been before.

"I have nowhere else to go, Jake." It was like she immediately sobered up. Any ounce of ease disappeared from the room as she spoke. She was holding a fistful of the blouse's fabric in her hand. It took a few moments for her to actually meet his eyes. "It's... I can't go back to my apartment."

"Why?"  _Oh my god._ Why was he blurting? Why did he have to be drunk? Not that he had much self-control when he was sober, but at least sober Jake could navigate a tense conversation with Rosa with a little more subtlety. Or could he? He'd almost never gotten into a situation with Rosa where there was genuine tension. Jake shut his eyes for a second before shaking his head, setting one hand on the side of his forehead. "I mean... just... why?"

She took a deep breath and looked off to the side, her arms crossing and uncrossing over her chest in an anxious way, lips pressing together. "I... It's a relationship... thing."

"Oh?"

"He's moving out his stuff tonight. I'd told him I'd be out of town."

" _Oh_."

Jake didn't even know that Rosa had a boyfriend, let alone that they'd been  _living_ together in her unidentified apartment somewhere in Brooklyn. Who the hell was she dating? Where the hell did Rosa pick people up? Why the hell did Jake know so little about her life? In a moment of confidence, he asked, "Am I allowed to know anything about this guy?"

Rosa sighed before she started speaking, but it was a sigh of reluctance, which meant she was going to tell Jake something. Score. "We dated for six months, he sprained his wrist during sex, and he didn't want to date a cop."

Breakups were hard. Jake knew that firsthand, and he'd never seen his friend go through one, but he could tell it was taking its toll on her. Everything from that night was starting to piece together in his brain. The drinking, the constant checking of her phone, the puffy eyes. Of course she wasn't complaining about being single, because whereas the rest of them had been single for months, she'd  _just_ broken up. Or been broken up with. He wasn't going to ask, because it didn't matter. What mattered was that she had most likely spent her Friday night feeling terrible and now she came over to her friend's house to be attacked again.  _Awesome. Cool cool cool. Nice one, Jake_.

He felt like both a shitty detective and a lame excuse for a best friend for not putting any of this together earlier. "Rosa, I'm sorry-"

"Don't be." Rosa shook her head. She wasn't going to spend more time talking about this than she needed to. "Thanks for letting me stay over. And for the shirt."

His voice immediately softened. "Of course." Pushing it, maybe, but he added, "You know that you can come over here whenever you need to, right? No questions asked." Well, maybe a  _few_ questions asked, but he was okay with them going unanswered. "I'm here for you, Rosa."

When she looked up at him, she was crying a little, her eyes red and bloodshot and rimmed with tears. "I know," she replied quietly, her voice a little gentler. "Thank you."

It was quiet again, but not like how it had been earlier, a comfortable and mutual silence rather than a dazed and awkward one. Jake was the one to break it. "Uh, well, do you need anything else? I mean, you know where everything is..."

"No, I'm okay." She nodded, more affirmative this time, and Jake got the message that she was done talking and he could leave now. A few minutes earlier, it probably would've hurt his drunk feelings, but he got it now.

"Okay. There's a blanket right there, and take anything you want from the fridge, and-"

"Jake. I know."

He held up his hands in defeat, backing up a little towards his bedroom. "Right. Okay." Jake paused as he debated whether or not to keep going with his thought, but  _fuck it_ , she was going through a breakup and she was one of his oldest friends and he didn't care if she didn't say it back because that's not what he was going for. "Goodnight, Rosa."

She had been grabbing the blanket off of the back of the couch, and looked a little taken aback, but only for a second. "Night, Jake. Your coffee was terrible."

The insult was both deserved and weirdly comforting; Rosa was still Rosa, even if he would've never previously imagined Rosa crashing at his place and crying in front of him. It was still her, and his coffee was still god awful. "Yeah, I know."

He couldn't say for sure that what he saw was an actual textbook smile, but it was close enough for Rosa Diaz, and he would take it. Tonight was a victory, even if it was a small one.

He could still hear her steps on the creaking wood floor from his bedroom, the sound of the couch shifting under her weight. All Jake could think about as he laid in bed was that he'd probably forget 60% of what had happened tonight, but he was okay with it.

Rosa would probably prefer it that way.


End file.
